12 of the Best Compact Reverb Pedals

Summer NAMM 2015 seems a very long time ago now. Obviously we have some more recent multi-modulation workshop style pedals like the RV-500 and GT-1000. I still think we're probably due another update here soon, as TCE Hall of Fame 2 was beginning to make this look a touch antiquated last year, and this year's models put it further in the shade. That set it's a decent robust performer - with all that usual Boss reliability, and you do get 8 very decent modes for your moderate outlay:

1. Modulate
2. Spring
3. Plate
4. Hall
5. Room
6. Dynamic
7. Shimmer
8. Reverb + Delay

Even though Dr Scientist's Atmosphere has more potential individual possibilities via its 16 'Patches' and 8 controls - I still feel that Joel Korte's latest is something of a revelation in this sector. The smart split into Dark and Regular (World) modes and the incredible way you can combine and control them makes this my frontrunner in this pack. 6 modes, 6 controls, dual footswitches, 18 dip-switches and 2 presets make this one hell of a reverb chameleon. And you pretty much get Tom Majeski Cooper FX's much sought-after 'Generation Loss' in the 'Mod' mode onboard - plus the ability to combine that with Robert Keeley's Hall, Plate or Spring - for some truly next-world sci-fi effects. I love everything about this pedal bar its lack of stereo outs.

1. Modulate
2. Shimmer
3. Black
4. Hall
5. Plate
6. Spring

Polara's 7 modes were pretty impressive within the company this pedal was launched into, but things have moved on quickly in the interim, and on a price-to-feature ratio etc. I can't see this properly competing against the more powerful TCE Hall of Fame 2. It does still though have variations of the world-famous Lexicon Studio Reverbs onboard, so there is quality to be found here. It's just that there are far smarter and more capable reverbs available nowadays.

1. Modulated
2. Halo
3. Hall
4. Spring
5. Room
6. Plate
7. Reverse

I've been following this one from the earliest developments - nearly a couple of years now it feels like. And this feels genuinely like a proper Reverb Workstation in its most practical compact enclosure. With dual footswtiches, LCD colour screen, 16 user-tweakable and saveable Patches, and 8 hands-on controls - this is almost everything I could have imagined it to be. Alas no stereo outputs, and no algorithm combining - which I think will be the essential take-away of 2018. This is the most expensive of those pedals featured here, and the enormous feature set covered justifies its price-point. It is however, not quite up with my Strymon Big Sky, Boss RV-500 or Source Audio Ventris. And even though somewhat lesser in many regards, I feel that Chase Bliss Audio's Dark World has somewhat overshadowed it in targeting that sort of demographic with slightly more ingenuity. It is nevertheless a fantastic reverb library and sounds as good as you would expect of Dr Scientist.

1. Spring
2. Hall
3. Octave (Up/Down/Mix)
4. Rotary
5. Plate
6. Smear
7. Vibro (Pitch Vibrato)
8. Gated
9. Swell
10. Filter
11. Mod FX (Flanger/Chorus/Tremolo/RingMod)
12. React (Dynamic Fills Reverb)
13. Aether (Reverse Delay/Reverb +/- Phaser)
14. Room
15. Alias (Sample Rate Reducing)
16. Pitch (Constantly Rising/Falling Pitch Reverb)

This is easily the simplest pedal featured here - having really just the one algorithm which though is pretty highly tweakable via its 6 controls. This ever popular ethereal and other-worldly sounding reverb is as if you just took one flavour off the CBA Dark World. It has that beautiful eerie spacey quality about it, but does not offer anywhere near the versatility of the other pedals here. Yes it's sort of a one-trick pony, but it's a really great trick, as is born out by how many of these are featured on pedalboards. I fear that the Dark World though is going to appeal to all those same players and offer them quite a bit more, albeit for quite a bit more - so horses for courses as always.

This pedal has been appearing on many a critics' 'Best of 2018' lists, and justifiably so in many ways - with some really great takes on the classics - including a really stellar Spring Reverb algorithm. Yet compared to a few of the newer ones, its thinking is still somewhat primitive. If you're looking for a really decent all-rounder mono reverb workstation, then this is a as good a shout as any, at a very reasonable price.

1. Hall
2. Spring
3. Plate
4. Revers (Reverse)
5. Echo (Reverb + Delay)
6. Trem (Reverb + Tremolo)
7. Mod (Modulated)
8. Dyna (Dynamic Reverb - Swell/Gate/Duck)
9. Auto-Inf (Auto Infinite Reverb - cascading washes)
10. Shim (Shimmer)
11. Poly (Polyphonic Pitch-Shifting Reverb)

I feel that this pedal is short of one or two controls - which is why it needs so many alternative versions of the same sort of effect, as there is only one 'Control' knob to tweak the key parameters of that algorithm. As with all of Mad Professor pedals - everything here sounds great - and the mix of momentary / feedback on the footswitch is some pretty smart engineering. Yet it is somewhat outpaced by the Oceans 11 and Hall of Fame 2 each in their own way.

1. Plate
2. Room
3. Spring
4. Hall
5. Shimmer 1 (Control = Duck Depth)
6. Shimmer 2 (Control = Duck Depth)
7. Shimmer 3 (Control = Ratio)
8. Room + Slapback Delay
9. Room + Multihead Delay
10. Swell 1 (Momentary)
11. Swell 2 (Momentary, Control = Speed of Rise)

For a while I thought this a pretty cool Reverb pedal - yet it lacks stereo, and has rather few controls and variables overall compared to most of these others. You do though see his fairly commonly paired with a Carbon Copy, and for those wanting a simpler take on Reverb this is still a strong contender, while I feel there are more clever alernatives generally available nowadays, and for significantly better pricing.

1. Room
2. Epic
3. Plate
4. Spring
5. Modulate
6. Pad

This latest iteration of what was the runaway success 'Immerse' has rather been swept up in the wake of The Atmosphere and Dark World - the Immerse's one major advantage that keeps it in contention though is its stereo ins and outs. Yet in that category I still feel that the Hall of Fame 2 overall has more to offer - at a considerably lower premium.

1. W3T
2. Plate
3. Hall
4. Spring
5. Sustain
6. Echo
7. Downtune
8. Shimmer

This has barely been out a year yet, and it's already showing some signs of age - only really in the area of edgy algorithms and ability for combinations. That said, the TonePrint feature allows you to create the most incredibly detailed of algorithms or download existing masterpieces into those 3 slots - and we have stereo ins and outs. The major thing missing for me actually is the lack of onboard presets. A second footswtich would allow you to cycle though those and make this pedal really useful (for me that is).

1. Room
2. Hall
3. Spring
4. Plate
5. Church
6. Shimmer
7. Modulate
8. LoFi
9. TonePrint 1 (default = Shimmer + Vibrato)
10. TonePrint 2 (default = Cathedral + Flanger)
11. TonePrint 3 (default = Momentary - Church + TroChorus)

I'm a sucker for dual-footswtich pedals, and this is a really cool take on reverb with a couple of interesting algorithms and a couple of classic ones. Like most on this page for me at least it's been somewhat overshadowed by The Atmosphere and the Dark World - sure it's only around half of those in price, but they are so much more compelling to me somehow.

1. Hall
2. Plate
3. Lo-Fi
4. Sonar (Reverb + High & Low Octaves)